Too Cold To See
by LediShae
Summary: Death is universal, and sometimes that dark specter uses other beings for his own purposes.


Title: Too Cold to See  
Author: ledishae  
Series/Verse: G1  
Kink OP and/or prompt: Twins_x_Ratchet WOI #20 Song Prompt: O' Death  
Rating: PG13  
Disclaimer: I own nothing, I am just torturing these characters for fun. ^.^  
Summary: Death is universal, and sometimes that dark specter uses other beings for his own purposes.

* * *

"I think I'm going crazy." Ratchet said lowly with a sigh.

Smokescreen stared at the mech on his rarely willingly used couch. "Despite your notorious reputation for accurate diagnoses, I sincerely doubt your prognosis. However, since it _is_ your prognosis I'm curious as to why you think so."

Ratchet smiled head tilting downward towards his clasped hands in a depreciating nod. Few mechs knew Smokescreen was brilliant, refined and dedicated to the mental health of their crew. Few knew Smokescreen was a very well preserved bot nearly as old as Ironhide. Fewer would appreciate his concerns. Most only knew his playful side; the gambling, bet making easily amused young looking playbot he naturally was.

"Have you read the last six debriefs?" Ratchet asked his friend, nodding towards the stack of yellow data pads for Smokescreen's optics only when mechs suffered trauma in action.

"Yes, they all were the active agents in the deaths of humans, normally resulting from the 'Cons throwing them into populated centers." Smokescreen pulled out the reports bringing up the human casualty list only he, Prime and Prowl were privy to.

"Forty-six humans are dead Smokescreen." Ratchet rasped, optics dark.

Smokescreen looked up sharply, optics bright with fear that one of their operatives had spoken. Ratchet repaired bots, ensured their health, served as a sounding board and mentor to the majority of the crew, but he was not privy to most of the operation details. It had to be this way, Ratchet had no opps training, if he was ever captured he had no experience in how to survive torture without giving up all he knew – which Smokescreen was realizing was more than everyone had feared.

Ratchet continued, ignorant of Somokescreens rising trepidation, "Bumblebee killed four, Bluestreak three last month; Optimus nine, Fireflight four, and Hound six in their last mission; and Jazz killed _twenty_ yesterday. Jazz should have killed only two last month, he should have been the first to cause such destruction, but I held him back. That slagging bastard seemed so amused that I would dare intervene in His work."

"Why would Jazz be amused?" Smokescreen asked, optics scrutinizing Ratchet with an intensity few ever saw.

"No Smokescreen, not Jazz. It was _Him_ – Death, the humans' god of termination. He's using us to cull the living." Ratchet sighed, pulling out a data pad and handing it to Smokey with a sigh.

Smokey connected a peripheral line to the data pad, neural lines trembling as a thrill of fear raced through him as he experienced the downloaded encounter pulled directly from Ratchet's own processors.

_... A shadow seemed to follow Jazz, glowing white slits where optics should be, yet the figure seemed somewhat organic, like a Jazz-sized human trailing in the saboteur's wake. Ratchet looked at the image, reset his optics and looked again, a thrum of unease filling his lines the figure held up two fingers then ran its hand along its own throat in the universal symbol of termination. Fear, cold terror filled Ratchet lines, Jazz had only two days to live._

_Ratchet checked the smaller mech over, noting nothing wrong, Jazz seemed fine, but the shadowed figure remained. Forcing himself to stay calm Ratchet looked at Jazz solemnly, "There's something in your coding I want looked at, Jazz. It's not a virus, but it might be a firewall recognition sequence. You could get hacked."_

"_Fine, mech, I hear ya. I'll check in with Smokescreen and Perceptor. Bee and Blue'll be in ta replace me." Jazz stood, shaking his helm. Ratchet knew that this was something big the opps division was on to._

_Later, the two younger mechs came in. Like Jazz they were followed by Death. Behind Bluestreak the specter held up three fingers, behind Bee four. Ratchet felt the same sickening terror fill his lines. This specter of destruction was claiming his patients and he feared there was nothing he could do. Jazz had two days, plus he was an officer. They had a better chance of surviving the loss of the younglings he was approving for duty than the loss of Jazz._

"_You both are clear, stay safe out there." Ratchet waved them off with false gruff cheer, then looked to the dark specter only for it to raise one finger to where its lips should be in a motion of silence. Ratchet swallowed and nodded, he would keep quiet, he had to no one would believe him._

Smokescreen looked up from the datapad he had been staring into throughout the relived experience, "Has this happened for everyone?" Ratchet nodded silently, remembering how Jazz came back with a clean bill of health days later, just as Bee and Blue came back stained a reddish brown with crusted human blood.

"If this happens again, if you see Death, submit a debrief like this one." Smokescreen hefted a deep sigh, "I'll find a way to tell command."

"Thanks," Ratchet whispered, "I would have rather you said I was insane."

"Me too." Smokescreen nodded, optics filled with the memory of Death and its warning for Ratchet to keep silent.

* * *

Ratchet returned to the bay, his sanctuary was still and quiet. Usually he enjoyed being in here alone, listening to the soft hum of machinery waiting to be used. Today, there was no comfort in his usual solace. Silence hummed beneath the sound of pulsing circuits. The bays' vent systems ran silently, as if holding its breath, waiting for something to come.

Out of habit, and a need to fill the void of nothingness his bay had become, Ratchet pulled several replacement assemblies out of storage to tinker with. Mechs always got damaged. Most of the time he could fix that damage in surgery, other times the entire limb needed replacing so lengthy repairs would not force a mech into an extended medical leave. Their numbers were few, Optimus' troops, no one could be left on extended leave unless if it was for injuries that could not be removed from the patient.

Ratchet looked at the six arm, four legs and two helm assemblies on his work bench. They were all from Sideswipe and Sunstreaker. The frontline terrors were hurt so terribly and frequently Ratchet had used reclaimed parts to build two entire replacement frames for each plus six sets of standard replacements for all their major systems. So far they had run through half of their replacements and Ratchet was once more forced to reclaim their damaged limbs from destruction.

As he worked, replacing damaged wiring, mending muscle cables and splicing neural lines, Ratchet felt a slow unease build between his shoulder struts. He glanced around, processors filled with shadows of Death haunting every corner of his med bay. He retuned to work, processors lost in his task until a breath of cold washed over him.

He looked up, scared blue optics looking on to glowing white orbits where human eyes should have been.

"Oh, Death," Ratchet swallowed, Optics bright as those unmoving hollow orbitals, filled with glowing white spheres seemed to glare at him. The figure raised his left hand, long, skeletal finger pointing at Ratchet. The hand lifted, that single finger raised in warning, then pointed back to Ratchet.

Ratchet looked from the silent hand to the brilliant lights of its eyes and swallowed nervously, "Won't you spare me for another year?" He understood Death's warning now. He had told Smokescreen, the game was over he had one year to find a replacement and prepare the Autobots for his demise.

The specter lifted its one long finger again, wagging it in a slow motion imitation of warning then vanished.

Ratchet sighed, helm down and returned to his work, his hands moving deftly. He let himself get lost in his work, the usual distraction a soothing balm to his troubled spark.

Until cold fingers traced up his back, crawled over his shoulders and along his neck anything Death touched went still making Ratchet numb to everything save what Death willed. With each touch his sensors froze unable to do the tasks he chose. Those chill fingers of Death still crawled, making Ratchet's systems to Him enthralled. Lastly Ratchet's optics failed to see as ice cold hands claimed his optics with glee.

His processors racing and thoughts sent to Primus in a fervent arc, Ratchet feared meeting Unicron, the Unmaker when Death loosed his spark. Ratchet sucked in a deep intake, his processors and spark turnng to his lovers out on patrol. Sunny and Sides would be devastated. With that last thought, Ratcet fell offline and into cold darkness.

"_Won't ya spare me over til another year?" The mech's voice rasped, bubbling with fluids._

"_Hush lad," Ratchet murmured, trying to soothe the young soldier's worries. "I'll do what I can."_

"_But what is this, that I can't see with ice cold hands taking hold of me."_

"_I said hush!" Ratchet snapped. "I know my plating is cold, complaining about it won't make my systems warm up any slagging faster."_

"_When Primus is gone and the Unmaker takes hold, who will have mercy on your soul?"_

"_You've been trapped on this forsaken planet too slagging long. We have sparks you glitch, now shut up!" Ratchet was loosing his patience, the bot under his hands kept writhing, systems shutting down and his rambling was making the medic twitchy, feeling almost as if he was being watched – and laughed at._

_The mech went silent, systems fading as the gray set in. Ratchet stepped back in horror, this was wrong, something was terribly wrong. He looked around, and spotted the sinister, grinning figure sitting at the dead mech's pedes. "No wealth, no ruin, no silver, no gold; nothing satisfies me but your soul." The figure looked up, a grinning hypocrisy of a mech's core struts._

_Terror flooded Ratchet's systems, optics wide as he spun from the gray frame and its hideous guide to the Matrix, only to stop short an inch from the grinning denta of the spark-less frame. Ratchet gulped, stepping back from the figure, and felt the fridgid breath on the back of his neck plating._

"_Well I am Death, none can excel; I'll open the door to heaven or hell." Ratchet screamed and fled racing from the figure that seemed to surround him. His pedes were heavy, held with leaden chain; his jaw was locked to never move again. His optics darkened making the world black, and his spark lightened ready to leave, never to come back. Terror faded, his systems stilled, his processors emptied of his many dreams left unfulfilled …_

Ratchet cyceled his optics slowly and looked around the darkened quarters, his processors feeling addled and disoriented. He moved to sit up, but found himself pinned. Fear from Death's presence spiked, then faded, a small smile spreading on his features as he realized what was pinning him – or more precisely, who.

"You will be the death of me yet." Ratchet murmured and relaxed. He was safe, Sunstreaker curled against him on one side, Sideswipe snuggled in on the other. The twins sprawled across his legs and chest.

"Nightmare?" Sunstreaker asked muzzily, creaking one optic open at the medic.

"You're on rest for the next two days, Smokescreen said you were overworked when Aid couldn't find anything wrong with you." Sideswipe filled in explaning Ratcet's unusual presence in their berth during his shift.

"Not really," Ratchet smiled up at the ceiling with an accepting nod, "Just thinking about an old friend." Death was ever a healer's companion, more so than any soldier or agent. Soldiers killed, but found lives off the battlefield. Healers fought death every day. "One I'm not ready to visit just yet." Ratchet sighed and relaxed into the berth wondering if he would receive any more messages from the dark specter and the dire warning of more humans yet to die.

"You've seen him too." Sideswipe murmured, "The dark figure."

Ratchet nodded, "Death."

"He's been around us all our lives, he trained us to fight. He shows us who he wants to die." Sideswipe continued, "We tried to ignore him, to help the mechs survive us."

"But more died, and more horribly than if you had just ripped their sparks out in the first place." Ratchet filled in, holding the frontliners closer to him like lifelines to the living.

"Yes," Sunstreaker clung to Ratchet and Sideswipe, his clawed fingers, once terrifying for his lethal grace, were now comforting. "Don't ignore him Ratch, he'll come after you."

"I know." Ratchet sighed and rested back, letting recharge claim him once more.

_Oh Death, won't you spare me for another year…_


End file.
